


In the Aftermath, Silence

by Indiana_J



Category: Bones (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-08
Updated: 2012-10-08
Packaged: 2017-11-15 22:31:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/532482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Indiana_J/pseuds/Indiana_J
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With Zack in the hospital, and under arrest, Bones struggles to understand the events that led her to this moment.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In the Aftermath, Silence

Dr. Brennan talked softly with Sweets before he nodded mostly to himself and wandered off to make some calls.  From her perch, she could look directly through the glass doors that led into Zack Addy's hospital room.  
  
With the exception of Zack, it was empty - though a uniformed police officer would sometimes poke his head in to sweep the room.  Brennan assumed it was to make sure the prisoner ( _Zack; a prisoner.  If Sweets was able to pull the right strings, if Caroline was able to work her magic, then he'd be transferred to a mental institution.  If not..._ ) was either still there or not causing a fuss.  
  
Zack?  Cause a fuss?  
  
Just yesterday, that very same room would have been filled with coworkers - friends - sometimes all together but most of the time, just one on shift while the others drove themselves to exhaustion with trying to find Gormogon and his apprentice ( _a quote tickled the back of her mind.  'Irony is the hygiene of the mind'_ ).  They would have sat in the only slightly more comfortable chair than the ones out in the lobby; the interaction would have depended on the person.  
  
Brennan tilted her head slightly as she watched the cops shift inside the room.  
  
Cam would have filled him in on what he was missing out on in the lab while he recovered from the explosion.  They would have been professional with each other; Zack found comfort in things that he was familiar with.

( _If she concentrated hard enough, the familiar smell of disinfectant would slowly fade away and she would be assaulted by the smell of burning chemicals and seared flesh.  And under it all, the faint scent of Cam's perfume as it lingered in the air.  She was certain Cam would never wear that scent again._ )  
  
On the other end of it, Angela would have brought out her fashion magazines and read those to him while Zack looked on in uneasy horror. 

( _She'd been wearing her normal bright colors that day.  Brennan remembered Booth's hand on the small of her back, urging her up into the back of the ambulance.  As the doors had closed, she'd seen Angela standing in the parking lot, arms crossed protectively over her stomach, as the blood splotches blended into different shades depending on the various colors of her clothes._ )  
  
Hodgins would have taunted and teased Zack while making sure his 'little buddy' was as comfortable as he could be, given the situation. 

( _Brennan was leaning against the wall while Hodgins rested his forehead against the paint.  'It should have been me in there.'  He was not looking for benediction or blame and she imagined that she could feel the heat from the blast rolling off of him as she squeezed his shoulder.  The connection the two shared from years before meant no words really had to be said and ... she had been grateful for the ensuing silence._ )  
  
While she had called his parents, Booth would have gone in there and gently punched him on whatever hadn't hurt at the time.  He would have said, in his Booth way, that he was proud of Zack.  In Zack's dorky way. 

( _Booth's jacket was gone.  She remembered that it had been used to support Zack's head as they waited for the ambulance.  The charcoal gray jacket that she had liked so much had slowly turned brown, no matter how much they had staunched the blood.  It had been everywhere._ )  
  
Even Sweets, so new, so awkward, had stopped in for a time.  Brennan had been surprised that the talkative doctor, who was paid to constantly chatter, who seemed almost incapable of being quiet, had simply sat there beside the bed.  Zack had seemed ... grateful. 

( _Sweets, standing at the end of the hallway in the hospital, somehow there before the ambulance.  His young face, pale and slick with sweat, came into focus as he joined them.  'He'll need to talk to someone.'  'You?'  That was all Booth, sarcastic, looming protectively over her shoulder.  'No.'  Sweets gently touched her shoulder and Brennan almost didn't feel it.  'You.'_ )  
  
Brennan ... she'd sat with him and talked with him.  She couldn't remember exactly what she had said at the moment, which was unlike her.  There'd been some reading - she was the only one he had really trusted to read his favorite science magazines to him.  But now her brain was compartmentalizing quickly, falling back into her old coping mechanisms, and she couldn't seem to stop it.  
  
She didn't know if she really wanted to turn it off.  
  
( _She was used to blood.  There was the dried blood that flaked off like rust - so old and dried that it was like forgotten paint splotches.  There had been the splatter of blood from suspects as they dropped to the ground; the dripping of blood from her own wounds.  Worse yet, the smear of Seeley's blood on her clothes that never quite had come out.  Zack's blood took days to get out from under her nails, like some sort of backwards nail polish._ )  
  
The chair next to her creaked with someone's weight but she ignored it.  Across the hallway, Zack was sleeping - sedated, though there'd been no real need.  Zack was too logical to try and escape unless it was absolutely guaranteed to work.  
  
At the moment, he couldn't even open doors on his own much less take on two armed police officers and Booth.  
  
( _Everything had it's place and every place had something to go there.  Clinical, detached thoughts to the forefront.  Emotions, in the safe in her head.  It looked exactly like the one that she kept the Christmas presents in.  Her parents used to rest there but it was empty now.  Except for Zack._ )  
  
"Brennan?"  A question.  
  
She breathed softly.  "Booth.  Have you heard from Caroline yet?"  
  
"No."  Another squeak as he settled further, the warmth of his shoulder against hers.  "Brennan."  It wasn't a question this time.  
  
( _Lines like a grid in her mind.  Like a dig layout.  Don't cross the lines - or was it beams, wasn't that the quote?  Booth would know._ )  
  
Her hand was gently picked up and turned over, almost like he was inspecting it.  Her fingers were gently clenched, the nails not quite digging into her skin.  One by one, Booth straightened them and she wondered if he could hear her bones creak with the movement.  A few knuckles popped but she ignored it, eying him sharply out of the corner of her eye.  
  
Slowly, he entwined his fingers through hers and gripped tightly, his warmth sinking into her chilled skin.  
  
( _The lines dissolved in her mind, the boxes started to open and she couldn't help but damn him for it._ )  
  
Brennan swallowed and squeezed his hand hard, her nails digging into the skin between his knuckles.  Another time, another place, he would have winced and made some sulking remark.  Now, he just soothed her skin with his thumb.  
  
( _He won't let her go back.  He'd drag her back from that mental tomb if it was the last thing he ever did._ )  
  
"I'm not okay," she said, finally, voice cracking as if she hadn't spoken in hours.  Days.  Rusted with grief and confusion.  
  
"I know," he responded, tucking her arm so close to his ribs that she could feel the steady and calming pulse of his heart, her hand still held tightly in his.  "And you know something, Bones?"  
  
Finally, Brennan's tore her gaze away from Zack's room and brought it around to her partner's familiar face.  "What?"  
  
"That's okay that you're not okay."  
  
Slowly, her forehead scrunched up.  At its best, it was Seeley Booth logic.  Simple and right there in the open.  There was no hiding with this man.  She didn't respond and knew that he wouldn't demand one.  
  
Instead, Brennan squeezed his hand again and leaned her head on his shoulder.  The quiet of the hospital settled over them like an uncomfortable, but familiar, blanket as they kept a quiet vigil on the darkened hospital room.  
  
It wouldn't be okay for a while.  It wouldn't even be okay in a year or two.  Or, Brennan realized, ever.  
  
But.  
  
Maybe that was okay, too.


End file.
